Episode 1: History's Greatest Monster, Chapter 4

The sun was heading for the horizon and the temperature starting to drop by the time they reached the scene of the recent 'accident' that had flitted into Ezekiel's clippings book. The area was taped off and the bodies removed but in the last rays of the reddening sun, against the background of the red ochre sands, the blood stains stood out black as oil.

"You'd think they wouldn't show," sighed Cassandra, frowning sadly at the stains. "Oxidation of the haemoglobin usually makes it redder, but outside the body the cells would lyse and the proteins denature, especially in this heat. It's what makes scabs go almost black."

"Two campers, apparently," supplied Jenkins. "Young women, I believe."

"They like women and children, I think," said Jones from a short distance away. "Might be women and girls, I'm not sure."

Ezekiel continued his search, ignoring the muttered conversations going on between the older members of the trio. Somewhere, near the site of the massacre, there was a burrow or cave. Some kind of den. He had to be the one to find it: that much had been agreed. He was the bait. He tracked down the creatures, irritated them as only he could, and got them to follow him out into the open expanse of the riverbed, where Cassandra and Jenkins could use the scrolls to send them back to sleep in their own little pocket dimension. That's how it was supposed to go, anyway. The only trouble was the first bit.

They had been searching for half an hour, the occasional helpful comment floating over from the two in the middle. It usually ended up being more irritating than helpful at Ezekiel's end of things. He would like to think that, if Baird had been here, he wouldn't have been landed with the thin end of the wedge. Unfortunately he knew exactly what she'd say to the suggestion. 'Go annoy something: it's what you're good at.'

The shadows were lengthening out to infinity when they threw a patch of rocky ground into sharp relief. He paused. The small stones and gravel of the area had been ruffled up into lines, dragging tiny troughs into the fine layer of windblown sand that covered the hard earth. Ezekiel bent down to them and reached out a hand. Without touching the lines, he began following their wavering path across the desert. Soon he had to switch on the torch app on his phone, using its light as much to follow the tracks as to keep from stumbling himself. An outcrop of rock loomed before him. He straightened up, and his shoulders sank.

"I am rapidly losing my appreciation for caves," he muttered. He looked around then, only just realising the distance he had travelled from the river. The thought struck him that finding his way back to it, in the dark and without any landmarks spotted on the way, might not be as easy as they had planned. He sighed. "First rule of travelling in time and space: don't wander off!"

Ezekiel shone his torch all over the face of the rocks. There were cracks here and there. There was the occasional graffito - nothing ancient, though. There were other stones and boulders piled up against the outcrop. There were no other entrances. The only possible route for the tracks was into the cave. He leant down and shone the torch inside.

"Hello!" Jones called, almost sure he could feel the echoes reverberating off his skin.

Nothing.

"Anyone alive in there?" Ezekiel tried again, fully aware there wasn't but absolutely certain he was going to try every other explanation for those odd tracks before he settled on the one they were looking for.

Still nothing.

He sighed, screwing up his face into a bundle of lines that had 'I'm going to regret this' written all over them. Then it happened.

A noise echoed out of the dark depths. It was somewhere between the resonant boom of the bittern and the pealing cry of the sea bird, with a harsh leonine growl thrown in for good measure. The unfamiliar, chimerical nature of the sound froze the young Librarian in his tracks, something in the forefront of his mind trying to analyse and identify it. The call sounded again. This time it was closer. Much closer. His thief brain, hiding in the darkness of the back of his mind, took over.

"Second rule: run!" Ezekiel muttered, and bolted back the way he had came.

Between his speed and his unsteady torch, he quickly lost the tracks. It was too late to turn and go back, though: something was chasing him. Something big and determined and definitely not improved by turning round or looking back to find out what it was. He kept an eye on the ground and one on the way ahead and ran for his life. Stones and boulders, trees and troughs loomed out of the darkness to challenge him. He ducked and wove, dodged and leapt. He surely should have hit the river by now? Somewhere in the darkness, either on his slow way to the rocks, or on his rapid removal from them, he had got turned around. He had no reference points. The sky was dark, the stars shining down brightly, but he'd never seen the stars here before. It had been long enough since he'd seen them anywhere in Australia. There was no sign of a light from anywhere nearby, either from Cassandra's torch or any isolated homestead. He turned in the direction he thought the riverbed must be, and he kept running.

XXXX

"He's been gone a while," said Cassandra, uneasiness seeping into her bones as the warmth of the day filed out. "Should we go check on him?"

"Mr Jones can take care of himself," replied Jenkins, his voice calm and quiet as always. How much of that, Cassandra wondered was just for her benefit? He shifted beside her. "It is getting quite dark, however, and the moon will not be up for a while yet. Perhaps a little light would be prudent."

Cassandra reached into a pocket for her phone. A shout sang through the air and ended in an expletive.

"Maybe lots of light," corrected Jenkins hastily. "Lots of light indeed. Now, Miss Cillian, if you please."

Cassandra dropped the hand that held her phone and raised the other. A ball of light formed there, light streaming for her fingertips and pooling in her palm. The glow brightened and shot skyward, spilling waves of blue-tinged aurora onto the cooling red sand.

"Somebody's going to see that," murmured Cassandra, her voice tight. "Even this far out from the town, it's going to be visible."

"Let's hope that somebody is Ezekiel," breathed Jenkins. "I expect this is normal practice for you, of course: the running and the screaming."

"Not so much," replied Cassandra breathlessly, her eyes wide and peering into the gloom beyond the circle of light. "Not Ezekiel anyway."

"Of course," shrugged Jenkins, shaking his head at his own forgetfulness. "He's spent half his life as a thief. Thieves learn to run quietly."

"I wish we knew where he was running to," sighed Cassandra. "It didn't sound like he was coming towards us."

"He's over there, heading north," Jenkins supplied, raising a hand automatically. "Fast."

"How can you tell?" Cassandra frowned. "Even I couldn't pick out the Doppler effect on that scream."

"It's a very distinctive scream," he replied.

Cassandra looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "How often have you heard someone scream like that?"

"Hmm," Jenkins shrugged, "back when magic was wild and dragons, demons and danger haunted every hillside... I'd say once or twice a week. Less so now. Swearing has been around a lot longer than you young people seem to think it has. We just understood the appropriate circumstances in which to use such terms."

"I'm guessing being chased by something deadly counts?" Cassandra quipped.

"It's why we invented it," said Jenkins.

"You did not invent curse words," retorted Cassandra.

"That one we did," he shrugged.

The scream sounded again.

"And that one," Jenkins added. He raised his arm again. "He's over there now."

"Should we go help him?" Cassandra frowned up at the globe of light hanging over them.

"He seems to be circling back round," said Jenkins, trying to sound confident. "I think he's seen us. If he's leading the creatures back to us we need an open space for this. We don't want to leave the riverbed."

"Maybe we could head up the riverbed then," suggested Cassandra. "Meet him half way."

"That works for me," agreed Jenkins, leading the charge as they hurried off.

The glowing globe of light followed them as they broke into a run up the river. The scream sounded again, cutting through the darkness into the dome of light, and then cutting off. Cassandra stopped in her tracks and looked at Jenkins, her jaw slack. Maybe it was just the light, but the old man's face was as white as his snowy hair. His head swivelled in the direction of the scream, followed moments later by the rest of him.

"This way," he called back to her, leading them up out of the riverbed, his voice shaking.

Cassandra ran after him, the magical torch following like a luminous balloon tethered to her hand. They ducked through the sparse vegetation of the desert, diving around boulders without hesitating to think what may lay beyond. Cassandra tried to reckon how long it had been since they had left the riverbed. Since they had last heard Ezekiel's voice. She could feel the synaesthesia edging forward in her mind, almost wanting to take over. She couldn't afford that. Not now. She forced it back down, focusing on the ground in front of her and Jenkins' receding back. The unfinished scream resounded in her mind, begging to be processed, to be analysed, to be found. Up it welled again, bringing tears with it. Not now. She couldn't afford that now. It was Ezekiel. The lucky thief. Knowing him, he would have found somewhere to hide. Maybe a cabin. Something with a door. That would have cut off the scream like that. Wouldn't it?

But everyone's luck runs out some time.

They raced through the desert, turning this way and that to avoid trees, shrubs and stones. All the while, the ball of light trailed behind them, casting undulating shadows over the unfamiliar landscape. They reached the edge of a dip and Jenkins stopped, Cassandra cannoning into the back of him. The light flickered and went out. In the darkness, as she steadied herself again, Cassandra heard a low, oddly pitched growl. She threw out her hand, light streaming from it onto the scene below. The entire depression was filled with bunyips. If Ezekiel was down there he was on the far side of the horde, or below them. The animals blinked and edged away from the blinding light. Cassandra could feel her hand start to burn as the heat of the light built up. She focussed on controlling it, aware of how badly the rest of her was shaking.

"The scrolls, Miss Cillian," whispered Jenkins by her side. "They won't affect him, only the creatures."

Her other hand now free of her phone, she reached it into the satchel she was carrying. It was Ezekiel's satchel. The realisation caught up with her and she shuddered again. She felt Jenkins' steadying hand on her shoulder and she brought out the scrolls. Handing one to him, she let the other float up out of her grasp. As together they spoke the words on the scroll in Jenkins' hands, its partner floated up and unfurled, stretching out impossibly long to encompass the group below. As they intoned the last words of the incantation, hot pain searing through Cassandra's hand, the two edges of the scroll met once more. The two rolls fused with a flash and disappeared, taking the bunyip herd with them. The depression was empty.

Cassandra cried out in dismay and pain, falling to her knees in the sand. Jenkins crouched down beside her, folding the fingers of her open hand inward and shutting off the light that still spilled forth. He replaced the light with a less magical version, retrieving a small flashlight from his own pockets and turning its beam on Cassandra's hand. It was unmarked.

"Does it still hurt?" Jenkins asked, the strain starting to show through his voice now. "I can't see anything."

"Where is he?" Cassandra sobbed. "He should be here. Where is he?"

"The scrolls would not have affected Mr Jones," replied Jenkins. "They only affect beings in the wrong dimension. They were designed for this purpose when the Library was still anchored in Egypt. They have never affected anyone or anything from this dimension before. I can only assume he found somewhere to hide and the creatures lost his trail."

"You headed straight for here, Jenkins," she replied, still shaking. "I don't see anywhere he could have hidden."

Silence fell as they followed the flashlight beam around the depression. The opposite side was bounded by a low escarpment of rock, the slopes on either side covered in a mixture of sand, loose stones and the occasional stubborn plant. Jenkins raised a shivering Cassandra to her feet.

"Come on," he said. "We should take a look around. Somebody has to and I'm not leaving you sitting here alone. The temperature is dropping and you're going into shock."

"What if he's not there?" Cassandra asked, allowing herself to be led down the slope.

Jenkins drew a deep breath. "One thing at a time. First we look. If we find him, we all go home and rest. If we don't... If we don't, you and I have to head back to the town and the door. We can't spend the night here. Not like this. You've used far too much of your strength and we're not equipped for it. If that was Flynn's satchel, maybe we'd have a tent in there somewhere, but it isn't. We cannot stay here all night. You will end up in another coma, or worse."

"We can't just leave him!" Cassandra turned a face wet with tears to the old man, her eyes begging him to listen.

"We look, then we leave, with or without Mr Jones," repeated Jenkins sternly. "We're not leaving him. We're just going back for reinforcements."